If you want to experience free games on Steam, there's, thankfully, a lot that the store has to offer. You can gallivant with your friends on hostile planets in PlanetSide 2 or message your love interest friend in a pseudo-AOL Messenger in Emily is Away.

The best free games on Steam offer a ton of content and have as few restrictions as possible. These 20 titles certainly do that in spades. The monthly active users are based on Steam Charts' stats from the past 30 days.

Apex Legends

• Steam release date: November 4, 2020
• Publisher: EA
• Monthly active players: 104,039

One of the best battle royales in the market right now is Apex Legends. It provides the high-precision gunplay from Titanfall 2 and brings it into the competitive battle royale space. Sliding down hills and using each hero's powers is satisfying to perform in the game. There will be many intense moments as you contend against opposing teams, and the game provides many opportunities to fail or succeed. The free-to-play model is a little on the expensive side if you want cosmetics and more characters, but playing from the base roster is also entertaining to start Apex Legends with.

Brawlhalla

• Steam release date: October 17, 2017
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Monthly active players: 10,369

If you're annoyed you can't play Super Smash Bros. on PC, check out Brawlhalla. It features a smooth platform fighter experience that plays great online. It also has a vibrant cast of characters to choose from. Many will be locked behind payments or in-game progression, but there is a regularly updated free rotation of characters to choose from. One of the game's unique strategic elements is switching two weapons available to each player. Each weapon's move set is radically different, and you'll need to?? decide which option best suits the situation.

The Finals

• Steam release date: December 3, 2023
• Publisher: Embark Studios
• Monthly active players: 14,242

Destructible?? environments, participating in a game show, and great gunplay all combine into The Finals, one of the latest multiplayer hits on Steam. You’re taking a cash prize and trying to transport it to a capture area. On the way, you’ll have t??o f??end off two other teams of three. With an exciting vertical element to each map, The Finals manages to stand out among its FPS competi????tion. Check this game out when you can! Oh, and it’s crossplay too! 

My Hero Ultra Rumble

• Steam release date: September 28, 2023
• Publisher: Bandai Namco
• Monthly active players: 1,494

Anime fans, rejoice! My Hero Ultra Rumble is a neat battle royale take on the beloved anime series. Each hero or villain has their own quirks that change the battle. Deku can pick up allies and run fast to get away from enemies. Meanwhile, ??Cementoss creates stone walls to protect his team and keep the enemy team distracted. If you don’t want to shoot down enemies in Call of Duty Warzone or Fortnite, My Hero Ultra Rumble offers a refreshing take on the genre. 

Emily is Away

• Steam release date: November 20, 2015
• Publisher: Kyle Seeley
• Monthly active players: 11

Emily is Away is a nostalgic journey back into the Windows XP era of communication. There was no Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram. Instead, you used to chat on AOL Instant Messenger. This unique storytelling device isn't just a gimmick, however. There's a beautifully told narrative ?about two friends who have grown apart from each other since high school and are trying to reconnect. Despite there being no voice acting, all the emotional beats are there, as you awa??it Emily's response. Try this one-hour game out when you can. It's one of the best free games on Steam.

Guild Wars 2

• Steam release date: August 23, 2022
• Publisher: NCSoft
• Monthly active players: 3,367

Can't afford Final Fantasy XIV Online or don't want to bother with the Battle.net client on PC for World of Warcraft? Guild Wars 2 is a good third option for an MMO. You can play the entirety of the engaging core campaign for free. However, there are restrictions you should keep in mind, like locked content until you reach a certain level. Despite that one fault, Guild Wars 2 offers a stunning ?world enriched ?with entertaining MMORPG gameplay.

Farlight 84

• Steam release date: September 21, 2023
• Publisher: Farlight Games
• Monthly active players: 1,817

Tired of Fortnite and want something new? Farlight 84 may be your antidote. It blends the art style of Epic Games�battle royale and mixes it with the ability-based system of Apex Legends. The result is a solid shooter that impresses new fans of the game and isn’t even out of Early Access yet. The weapons feel heavy and powerful, and the overall environments look pleas?ing to the eye. Just turn off the vo?ice acting; it’s pretty bad!

Disney Speedstorm

• Steam release date: April 18, 2023
• Publisher: Gameloft
• Monthly active players: 262

Want a fun Mario Kart-like game wit?hout having to resort to emulation? Disney Speedstorm is a great free-to-play substitute. The tracks are immaculately designed and b?ased on the films we know and love like Lilo & Stitch, Aladdin, and Pirates of the Caribbean. You’ll be avoiding pillars of fire within the Cave of Wonders and giant tentacles from sea monsters in Port Royal. While the items are disappointingly generic for a Disney game like this, there is a neat alternate use for most of them by holding down the button. For example, with a boost (mushroom), you can hold it to get three smaller bursts of?? speed rather than just one. Read my review for more information.

Marvel Snap

• Steam release date: August 22, 2023
• Publisher: Nuverse
• Monthly active players: 4,723

Everyone knows and loves the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so a card game based on the property could be a cheap cash-in. Fortunately, Marvel Snap is a cherished title for fans of card games, and it's free to play. "At work and at home, I just can’t put it down," said CJ Andriessen in his review. "With its structure and speed, it doesn’t feel as tactical as some of the other card games I’ve played, but it finds a way to be satisfying in its brevity." Each match in Marvel Snap also only lasts for three or so minutes, as opposed to Hearthstone, making this quick and easy to play.

Path of Exile

• Steam release date: October 23, 2013
• Publisher: Grinding Gear Games
• Monthly active players: 23,219

Path of Exile, despite it being a free Steam game, is an excellent alternative to the Diablo series if you crave more ARPG goodness. It features a tonne of passives to unlock through the huge skill tree system. It also includes plenty of classes, including the Duelist, Marauder, Ranger, Scion, Shadow, Templar, and Witch. Path of Exile will offer hours upon hours of content for the low, low price of $0, and it al?so has PvP modes like tournaments and Capture The Flag.

Team Fortress 2

• Steam release date: October 10, 2007
• Publisher: Valve
• Monthly active players: 52,155

A cherished multiplayer game for many Team Fortress 2 is an absolute classic. This team-based shooter has you playing different rol??es. One can be the Heavy, dealing a lot of damage with his mini-gun. Another player can send out Sentries and Teleporters throughout the map as the Engineer. There are many options available, so you can find the right playstyle. Despite the game being over a decade old, it still holds up visually with a cartoony art style. Give it a go if you haven't already.

The Sims 4

• Steam release date: September 2, 2014
• Publisher: EA
• Monthly active players: 26,585

Living out your dreams as a Sim doesn't necessarily sound fun, but The Sims 4 somehow sucks you in for many hours at a time. You're building your own house, family, and wealth in the game which will feel rewarding. You also grow relationships with other sims by hanging out with them and performing a variety of activities in the community. All of this is now free to play on Steam, so go ahead and download The Sims 4, if you want a chill simulation game to play.

Warframe

• Steam release date: March 25, 2013
• Publisher: Digital Extremes
• Monthly active players: 45,873

It's been a decade, but Warframe still pulls in players today. This game is extremely fast with powerful guns and delightful swordplay. It's been supported thoroughly by developer Dig?ital Extremes. The game added an open world, and there is spaceship warfare to be had. The art style is also unabashedly strange as it embellishes its sci-fi genre with pride.

Omega Strikers

• Steam release date: September 16, 2022
• Publisher: Odyssey Interactive
• Monthly active players: 375

The precision of the MOBA gameplay of League mixed w?ith the sport of soccer doesn’t sound like a great mix, but Omega Strikers certainly proved me wrong. Each character has their own skills to master while you’re trying to score a goal. You can even take out your foes with your abilities by striking them out of the arena. The graphics are gorgeous, the concept really comes through, and the head-bump-worthy music will keep your heart racing. Check this gam??e ou??t!

Splitgate

• Steam release date: May 24, 2019
• Publisher: 1047 Games
• Monthly active players: 212

If you thought Halo Infinite’s multiplayer was disappointing, give Splitgate a go. This arena shooter offers cool weapons to control and ?a unique mechanic that lets you use portals to shoot through or teleport with. In my opinion, the maps are far more interesting than their Xbox-published counterpart. There are many modes to choose from as well, and you can create Custom Lobbies with all manner of rules available, including Big-Head mode.

DC Universe Online

• Steam release date: November 2, 2011
• Publisher: Daybreak Game Company
• Monthly active players: 361

We've all wanted to step into the shoes of Batman and Superman, and you can get that power fantasy by creating your own hero or villain in DC Universe Online. Behind it is over a decade of content with plenty of DC stories and experiences to encounter in this free-to-play MMO. Some of the quests are written by DC comic legends Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman. Unlike others of its genre, the combat's fast and revolves around your choice of superpower. The game might be 13 years old, but it's still getting Very Positive reviews on Steam to this day.

PlanetSide 2

• Steam release date: November 20, 2012
• Publisher: Daybreak Game Company
• Monthly active players: 667

PlanetSide 2 is a massive FPS that spans across wide environments and many players against each other. It's not just about capturing points on a map like the Battlefield series. Instead, Daybreak Game Studios says "The core gameplay of PlanetSide 2 is about holding crucial territories and controlling resources." It also says you'll have to work "strategically as a team to secure tactical positions has long-lasting effects that can shift the tide of battle." There are six different classes to master as well as you go to war in PlanetSide 2.

Super Animal Royale

• Steam release date: August 26, 2021
• Publisher: Pixile
• Monthly active players: 578

Want a fresh spin on the battle royale genre? Well, you can play this cute take on it as you play as animals picking up weapons and trying to be the last remaining. Super Animal Royale features unique 2D bird's eye view angle on the action. The action gets wild with bombs of different types, grenades, and dart guns, in addition to the regular guns you'd expect like a shotgun or SMG. You have a fun, slightly less intense night with Super Animal Royale than the likes of Apex Legends, ?which needs precision in a reflex-based first pers??on-shooter.

Dark & Darker

• Steam release date: June 7, 2024
• Publisher: IRONMACE
• Monthly active players: 17,458

Those who like sickeningly hard games will find comfort in Dark & Darker. In a D&D-like dungeon, you’re exploring an ancient citadel thwart with many dangers. You’ll be taking on tough monsters and making your way through the depths of this citadel to get the treasure you’re seeing. You can play as a barbarian, a ranger, and a bard in a three-person squad as you turn off lights to get away from enemy detection and utilize magic to gain the upper hand. The game is currently in early access, but it has a Mostly Positive score on Steam right now.

MultiVersus

• Steam release date: July 19, 2022
• Publisher: WB Games
• Monthly active players: 1,735

After disappearing for almost a year, MultiVersus has returned stronger than ever with new characters like The Powerpuff Girls and Beetlejuice taking on the likes of Bugs Bunny and Superman. The Smash-like platform fighter is thrilling with ??spectacular sp??ecial moves, funny voice lines, and an overall polished product. Some of the new stages like the Warner Bros Water Tower are also bright, beautiful, and fun to play on. All of the action is cross-play between all of its available systems, so you can play with your pals on consoles.

Previous entries:

• Smite
• Halo Infinite multiplayer
• The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
• Goose Goose Duck
• DOTA 2
• Star Wars: The Old Republic

The post 20 best free games on Steam right now appeared first on Destructoid.

Deadlock, Valve's most poorly guarded secret since 2003, is already a considerable hit among Steam's ever-growing user base. The hybrid shooter is shaping up to be way more than a novelty and has rarely dipped below the 140,000 concurrent player mark in the past week ever since it was of??ficially announced last week.

Sadly, despite its early state, Deadlock has already caught the eye?? of enough cheaters to disrupt the game.

Cheaters love Valve games

Video game cheats are part of an industry whose real numbers are hard to find out, but we know cheaters permeate all layers of the competitive ladder in all games affected. Many games even see pros getting caught for illegal activity every year.

What's weird about Valve's games is that cheats come by even when there's no competitive or profitable angle in sight. Team Fortress 2, one of Valve's most endearing titles, is as close as a shooter can get to a party game. Sure, it later added a competitive mode, but Team Fortress 2 spent most of its life being a fun romp devoid of the pressures we tend to associate with more competitive titles, such as Valve's own Counter-Strike.

Still, none of that prevented Team Fortress 2's servers from first being disrupted by cheaters, then by a swarm of bots so large it permeated every server and barely left any space for regular players to even get in. The issue grew so debilitati??ng and lasted so long that fans sought to make a campaign to beg Valve to save the game.

Valve ended up mostly fixing the problem at some point, but that was the bizarre reality of Team Fortress 2 for a while. All fans are naturally hoping Valve took the necessary notes to prevent something similar from happening to Deadlock as well.

Valve's new MOBA-like shooter was certainly made with a competitive angle in mind, but the game barely even has any way of measuring one's Matchmaking Ranking, let alone have a serious ran?ked mode. It's still that bare-bones. And yet, it's not entirely impossible to meet players who will happily lower yo?ur unknown MMR by using obvious cheats that render you unable to compete.

In Deadlock, all c??haracters have their own collection of wild abilities, so we're long past the time when cheaters would just headshot you through a wall. You can now expect all sorts of shenanigans, like enemies who teleport away from you right as you're about to get killed.

That's not to say, however, that old-timey? cheaters with wallhack and aimbots are no longer a thing? —they definitely are.

Those are the classics that you c?an be sure will always remain preserved.

What's the thing with cheaters in Valve games?

What's the point of cheating in Deadlock? Like, really - even if you're a cheater or a cheat-maker, why out yourself so early on? When Valve can so easily catch the accounts producing weird results among its still small player base and possibly find ways to counteract this kind of so??ftware in its infancy?

Are the cheat-makers just too confident that they cannot lose this war, or is trolling Valve games just to??o i?rresistible to them? We may never find out.

I'm glad I'm yet to find obvious cheaters in Deadlock, as they have the power to be especially annoying. Finding cheaters in TF2?, a game that I can just leave as I please, has nothing on finding them in a game where a match might take up to 50 minutes. Well, probably not that long when cheaters are involved??, but you get what I mean.

As of right now, I'm yet to find something to complain about regarding Deadlock, and I wholeheartedly recommend anyone try it as? well.

The post Deadlock cheaters are an unwelcome? reminder of what ruined Team Fortress 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Despite being 17 years old, Valve's classic, personality-laden, multiplayer FPS Team Fortress 2 is still going strong. A community of fans continues to flock to the game in their tens of thousands, but there's a major issue with the game at the?? moment that's led to a new movement.

Over on Imgur, user randomkeyboardsmash has posted a link to a petition which is asking Valve �as the publisher and developer �to fix TF2. The post goes on to say that "malicious aimbots" have been a point of content??ion for "over five years," and that it's time to "give the problem the spotlight it ne?eds."

The link to the pe??tition shows it's already got some support behind it, with over 197,000 signatures at the time of writing. The post on Imgur ends by saying that cheating has ?been a significant drawback, and that the game has been "ignored by its publisher" for some time.

What's the deal, yo?

This actually isn't the first time a petition has been started with a view of getting Valve to fix Team Fortress 2. A similar movement was created a couple of years ago,? with a response from the developer posted on Twitter/X saying the team was "working to improve things."

However, cut to today and not much appears to have been done, but pressure may be building. If you take a look at the game's Steam page, you can see it's being review bombed by the c??ommunity, where it's currently showing as "Mostly Negative."

The comments speak for themselves. Many are crest?fallen at best and downright pissed off at worst. Fans are essentially calling on Valve to do something about the problem that's been persistent for years, which has seen the game become swamped with spambots and?? aimbots, as well as players finding themselves doxxed by cheaters.

Whether Valve will step in this time remains to be seen, but the general feeling is that the studio does not appear to show much interest in rectifying any issues with Team Fortress 2.

Despite this, the game has been rising up Steam's Top Sellers list since a recent update, with it now at the number 67 spot. That might not sound high, but given the game was released over a decade and a half ago and is still in the top 100, that's some going. It's at least above the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and Crusader Kings 3. But if the developer ignores th?e petition and the cries for help, it could spell disaster for the erstwhile loved FPS.

The post Team Fortress 2 petition is looking to save the game from ‘malicious aimbots’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Valve just pulled the ultimate switcheroo

13 years after appearing as a fan-favorite community mod, VS Saxton Hale finally graduated into a real Team Fortress 2 game mode. Sadly, it wasn't even 13 days before Valve yoinked it away from their big TF2 2023 summer update.

Though we don't know exactly what triggered the removal, many players complained about the mode's high instability. Very sad news, considering how VSH seemed to work just fine while in its community mode version. Things have gotten even rockier four days after the update. A few players claim VSH is back up, whereas others complain that the mode is constantly showing up only to vanish again. Eit??her wa??y, many complain they're unable to enter matches.

What is Vs Saxton Hale?

To understand what VSH or Vs Saxton Hale is, it's essential that we learn who Saxton Hale is. Though not originally in the game, Saxton Hale exists in the TF2 comics as a buff Australian weapons and hats dealer. Yes, that means t?hat if you've ever spent money on any of Valve's famous in-game hats, then congrats �you've helped fund this madman's made-up empire.

As for VS Saxton Hale, the casual game mode it??self, it's an asymmetrical multiplayer battle mode.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNOsoq3hRbA

??At the beginning of the round, one of the players in the server will randomly spawn as Saxton. His mission? To end everyone else. The remaining players will have to join forces to try to take Saxton down. It's not an easy battle, as Saxton is a powerful beast. Even though he only has two weapons, his left and right fists, he has a lot of HP and a bunch of special abilities tha?t make him a tough target even against the combined efforts of eight godforsaken players.

Saxton can make use of:

• Sweeping charge: an ability that makes Saxton rush towards players to push them away. If the players end up hitting walls in result, they'll take extra damage.
• Saxton Punch: This acts as Saxton's ultra. It takes 30 seconds to charge up after he begins a round, but then he'll be able to use a devastating punch that'll damage every enemy in close proximity.
• Mighty Slam: a ground-pounding move that Saxton can perform when he's in the air.
• Brave jump: oh yeah, we weren't joking when he said that he can rain terror from above. Just like the scout, Saxton is somehow also able to perform a double jump that he can use to make the best possible use of his Mighty Slam move.

But Saxton isn't the o?nly one with abilities. The mercenaries also have, well, two abilities:

• Wall Climbing They can easily climb walls by melee attacking the ground as this will propel them into the air.
• Last Man Standing Once Saxton only has 3 mercenaries left to kill, they will get a damage boost. Once he only has one mercenary left to kill, he'll get a huge damage boost.

Valve is hopefully working on the issue, since VSH is showing some signs of life in the casual?? queue. That could indicate some backend tinkering is taking? place. Still, we don't know when VS Saxton Hale will make a return in full swing.

The post VSH makes a rocky offic?i??al debut in Team Fortress 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Seal of approval

Valve's team-based shooter Team Fortress 2 isn't exactly the most grim, serious game. While it centers around mercs fighting each other for control of objectives, its tone has certainly been light-hearted. And that carries over to the latest, community-driven update that brought an adorable seal into Team Fortress 2.

As part of the Summer 2023 update, which is seeing Team Fortress 2 hit some new player count records, there are 14 new map?s to play. One? of these, Selbyen, is a Player Destruction map with a simple objective: be the team that feeds the most fish to the seal.

While carnage ensues, players can pick up and give buckets of fish to the seal that will routinely hop through the center of the map. Really, it should be obvious how the fanbase has reacted to an adorable plump seal hopping its way to the ocean. Everyone loves it.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=viRaGizKxf4

There has, of course, already been fan art of the adorable oceanic mammal.

//twitter.com/_AltoArcadevere/status/1?6795071509500067?84

As many have concluded, the seal is a fantastic addition to Team Fortress 2. Thankfully, the seal is invincible to all the explosives and ballistics flyin??g around the arena, too. The seal is a vibe one can aspire to, honestly; peaceful, cheerful, vibing, in its lane.

//twitter.com/heavyf??ortres/status/1679304909437501440

The seal update

So yes, players have taken to calling the Team Fortress 2 Summer 2023 update the "seal update." It's worth noting that this is a community addition to the game; while Valve put out the call and selected the new additions, Selbyen is a map created by TF2 community creators FGD5, Lo-fi Longcat, Rhamkin, bakscratch, and Zythe. You can see their Steam Workshop page here, where players are congratulating ??them and praising the seal.

There's a bunch of other neat stuff in the Summer 2023 update too, aside from the adorable seal. 14 new community maps, including some in the asymmetrical VSH (Versus Saxton Hale) mode, are in. There are also new community-made taunts in the store and 25 new community-contributed items in the Summer 2023 Cosmetic Case, as well as some War Paints and Unusual effects. It's a lot for an old game. But it's also a testament to how the TF2 community has stuck with it over the years.

The post Team For??tress 2 Summer update adds a seal, and eve?ryone loves it appeared first on Destructoid.

The boys are back in town

Team Fortress 2 got a surprisingly large update this week, and it seems like players are flocking to it. Steam charts show Team Fortress 2 hitting an all-time player ??high following the Summer 2023 upda?te.

Judging by Steam tracking site SteamDB, Valve's team-based shooter climbed well above its previous player count records with the Summer 2023 addition to Team Fortress 2. Anecdotally, it seems?? like ?a lot of people are hopping back on, too.

What's in the content update, though? It's actually a lot of community content. A while back, Valve had put out a call for Steam Workshop submissions for a seasonal update. The Summer 2023 update looks to be the fruits of the c??ommunity's labor, bringing in 14 new maps and even fully incorporating a game mode, VSH—Versus Saxton Hale—an asymmetrical battle between a team and one soup?ed-up Saxton.

Hopefully, this kind of renewed interest in Team Fortress 2 could see the classic game get some more attention. While it's a big update, it's also a primarily community-developed one. And the community clearly still loves this game, even through all the years. It's hard  to think of many other (non-MMO) games that could have this kind of fer?v?ent resurgence.

Here's the content updates for the Summer 2023 update. For the full patch notes, including the general gameplay and backend updates, head here.

Team Fortress 2 Summer 2023 update patch notes

Summer 2023!

• Featuring 14 new community maps: Sharkbay, Rotunda, Phoenix, Cashworks, Venice, Reckoner, Sulfur, Hardwood, Pelican Peak, Selbyen, VSH Tiny Rock, VSH Distillery, VSH Skirmish, and VSH Nucleus
• Added the Summer 2023 Cosmetic Case
  • Contains 25 new community-contributed items
• Added 6 new community-contributed taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  • Taunt: Killer Joke
  • Taunt: Star-Spangled Strategy
  • Taunt: The Head Doctor
  • Taunt: Tuefort Tango
  • Taunt: The Road Rager
  • Taunt: The Killer Signature
• Added 20 new community-created Unusual effects
  • 12 new effects for Unusual hats
  • 8 new effects for Unusual taunts
• Added the Summer 2023 War Paint Case
  • Contains 10 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Summer 2023 Collection
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• All cosmetic and taunt cases will grant Summer 2023 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the Summer event. This does not include crates.
• The Summer event runs through September 15th, 2023

The post Team Fortress 2 hits new all-time player peak?? after Summer? 2023 update appeared first on Destructoid.

Free fan game released on PC

Team Fortress 2 and Hotline Miami are an unlikely match, but in the realm of just-go-for-it-and-see-what-sticks fan games, this funky fusion works well enough. Midnight Mercenaries, a top-down action game released for free on Game Jolt, lets you cleave through heavily armed enemies as familiar TF2 classes like the Scout, Heavy, and Spy. It's definitely worth a run-through if you've got the time. (Thanks, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.)

Imagine smacking a Hotline Miami goon from afar with a baseball, or unloading a minigun on a room of baddies (then blowing yourself up with a barrel). That's Midnight Mercenaries.

The creator, GermanPeter, also has an extended playthrough on YouTube (embedded here) if you just want to take a pee??k with??out committing to a full install on Windows.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw4gnzjOb5I

Much like the source material, the action can be frenetic until you get a proper feel for the floor plans and how the AI might react to your plan of attack. Sometimes, you have the right idea, but there's something off and the whole thing gets derailed. Death can be instantaneous �for you and your foes. And beyond the iconic Hotline Miami framing, Midnight Mercenaries also works to replicate the unique kits for each TF2 class.

As much as I often stuck with a shotgun in the Hotline games, I don't mind adapting to different playstyles, and that's kind of the appeal here. Some of the old tricks still work against the super lethal but less-t??han-bright AI, while other times, depending on the level layout, it's crucial to work with �not against �your character's particular set of skills.

It'll keep you on your toes, but it's not unfair

According to the developer, the intention is to have "fair enemy placement that prevents enemies from sniping you from off-screen." There's also a respawn option, so you can take another crack at the current floor without a ton of pressure. Of course, high score chasing is a major part of Hotline Miami, and that holds true for Midnight Mercenaries too.

[caption id="attachment_336384" align="alignnone" width="1432"] _{Watch your step.}[/caption]

The story setup isn't particularly memorable �I found it hard to buy into, given the characters involved. There's also no topping the real deal's soundtrack. But if you're looking for familiar Hotline Miami action with a neat enough TF2 twist, this is it.

Just watch out for those blended-in bottoml?ess pits. Every dang time?!

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The bots aren't gone forever, but this new update seems like a good first step

Valve has issued a new Team Fortress 2 update. It's the first one since the massive #SaveTF2 movement that drew attention to the massive bot problem in Team Fortress 2. And while the new update isn't a cure-all, the community seems to feel it's a s?tart.

The update, which went live Tuesday evening, addresses several concerns. Among the updates are several that help with the bot problem in Team Fortress 2; users can no longer change names during a matchmaking game, for example. Both teams are able to run kick votes at the same time, as well as a global vote running at the same time as a kick vote. And it cleared out an exploi??t that allowed bots to clear the in-game chat, disrupting communication.

These updates make it easier, essentially, to kick the bots than it was before the update. Valve acknowledged the issue following a protest in May, saying it saw how large the iss?ue has become and that the company was working on improving things.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4cfo0f88Ug

The bot wars continue

So what's the community's response? Well, it seems to be that it's a start. Comments on the r/tf2 subreddit seem cautiously optimistic??, as players note that some of these fixes—like preventing bots from name-swapp??ing to avoid kicks or get humans kicked—are notable quality-of-life updates.

Fanbyte spoke to ShorK, a Team Fortress 2 community member who was part of the #S?aveTF2 protest, and they seem encouraged.

"People are h??appy that they’re taking small measures, but because of this weird, old bug fix, people think Valve might be getting ready to push out more bug fixes and getting stuff fixed, for once," ShorK told Fanbyte. "It looks very promising that they’re doing it this way."

Though Team Fortress 2 has been around for ages, it's retained its popularity over the years and still draws in players. Hopefully for the fans, this is the beginning. Right now, the community seems to be emphasizing that this is a nice start, but not an end-al?l solution.

The post Late??st Team Fortress 2 update takes steps towards fixing bot problem appeared first on Destructoid.

Valve says it hears the #SaveTF2 campaign

Team Fortress 2 players have been banding together and organizing to call attention to the current state of the game. And yesterday, amid a wave of #SaveTF2 posts, Valve responded to Team Fortress 2 fans, s??aying it hea??rs and is working on improving things.

The situation in Team Fortress 2 has been an ongoing problem for players. Reports of massive botting problems have been going around for years, without much changing. Recently, players decided to organize and get? the word out.

Players canvassed various emails and tips lines, including our own, sending messages detailing the ongoing problem. We reached out to Valve about the campaign at the time, but did not receive a response. IGN followed up with a massive report, detailing the extent of the botting issue in Team Fortress 2 and how it ramped up in severity around 2020.

Yesterday, players organ?ized a protest using the #SaveTF2 hashtag, and this see?med to finally elicit a response.

"TF2 community, we hear you!" reads the tweet from the official Team Fortress 2 account. "??We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are wor??king to improve things."

//twitter.com/TeamFortress/status/152997064022401843??3

Man vs. machine

This tweet is the first original post from the Team Fortress 2 account since July 2020, not counting a retweet from the Valve account in October that year. It's a sign of how long the game has been in straits, but also hopefully a sign that help is coming for the longtime TF2 faithful.

Even though maintaining a long-running game can often be trouble, Team Fortress 2 has had a pretty long-lasting impact on the space. In my view, it?? codified the team shooter, and I still have great memories of matches from years and years ago.

While other games have been left to simply exist in a final, never-updated-again state, I'm hopeful that Team Fortress 2 can at lea?st get stabilized for the passionate players who are still booting it up and playing.

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'You were good, son'

Actor Rick May, best remembered in the video game community for his roles in Star Fox 64 and Team Fortress 2, has passed away at the age of 79. The news was released by Seattle's Rekindle School, an initiative where May resided as a teacher?? of th?e performing arts.

While May has featured in many video games, including Age of Empires II and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, his most enduring work saw him voicing the militant-minded, overtly-patriotic Soldier in Team Fortress 2, and as both Andross and Peppy Hare in Star Fox 64, where May coined th??e now-iconic phrase "Do a Barrel Roll!"

Outside of gaming, May was most often found on stage, having starred in and/or directed some 300 shows over a 50-year career. These included roles in classics such as Arsenic and Old Lace, Fiddler on the Roof, Death of a Salesman, and the award-winning one-man show Bully! An Evening with Teddy Roosevelt.

May had been undergoing rehabilit??ation at a nursing home after suffering from a stroke in February, but recently contracted coronavirus, from which he passed on Monday, April 13. We at Destructoid offer our condolences to his friends and family.

Rick May - In Memoriam [The Rekindle School]

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The Hat Squad

Steam Workshop has, for a long time, been a great way for the community to add fun content to some of their favourite games, be it stages, accessories, skins, characters or whatev??er the twisted human mind can conjure up. A new ruling has been set, however, that will require verification on items added to specific games, namely Valve's own titles.

The ruling was pushed out this week, and currently only applies to Team Fortress 2, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Going forward, all Steam W??orkshop items for these titles will need to be verified by Valve before they become available for download. The two-step process requires confirmation of the item via a returned email, before the item joins the "queue" to be moderated.

The goal is to keep an eye out for peop?le overly-exploiting the system, or bargaining players "free skins" in return for subscriptions. Valve has said?? that content creators who already have a substantial number of upvotes, items, and subscribers will be exempt from this process. The moderation process is not expected to roll out to other games on Steam.

Steam Workshop items require Valve approval [PC Gamer]

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Scream Fortress X is underway

Game developers have begun kicking off their Halloween events early to allow for ample playtime, and that even goes for Valve this year. Team Fortress 2 is on its tenth Scream Fortress event, a fact I didn't particularly care to know but now can't seem to stop thinking about. This game just does not quit.

If you've long since moved on from TF2, the Halloween celebration probably won't bring you back into the fray. Scream Fortress X has five community-mad??e maps to run through, Contracts (read: challenges) to keep you??r attention, and a batch of cosmetic items to earn over the next several weeks.

During the event, you can log in to claim a Soul Gargoyle which enables Halloween item transmutations, lets you work through Merasmissions, and uh, eats souls. Valve has ad??ded five new Contracts and also reset the objectives from prior years so players have the opportunity to finish them again.

Why bother? Because you need to?? look your spookiest! Clearing out a Contract will net you a free Halloween item and a chance of earning a Violet Vermin Case o?r a Scream Fortress X War Paint Case.

If I just lost you, here's how it all breaks ??down:

• Violet Vermin Case
  • Contains 20 new community-created cosmetic items that make-up the Violet Vermin Collection
  • Has a chance to give one of 4 community-created Halloween-restricted items as a bonus item
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• Scream Fortress X War Paint Case
  • Contains 10 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Scream Fortress X War Paint Collection
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• Two new official taunts in the Mann Co. Store
  • Taunt: Panzer Pants
  • Taunt: The Scooty Scoot
• 17 new community-created Unusual effects
  • 11 new effects for Unusual hats
  • 6 new effects for Unusual taunts

Scream Fortress X runs until November 14, so there's plenty of time to squeeze in TF2 hijinks.

Team Fortress 2 Update Released [Valve]

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Just one round of Left 4 Dead couldn't hurt...

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how incredible The Orange Box was? The bundle brought Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal to a lot of households that might not have otherwise played all three games. I never did send the garden? gnome into space, but boy did I love this compilation.

The Orange Box is ever-so-briefly in the headlines again because it's now sporting Xbox One X enhancements along with Portal: Still Alive, Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2. As of? today, these Xbox 360 titles can "run at a higher resolution and 9X the original?? pixel count" when played on Xbox One X.

With this update, there are now 21 different Xbox One X ?Enhanced Xbox 360 games. That's onl??y a fraction of the overall backward-compatible list, but kudos to Microsoft for sticking with it.

Classic Valve Titles Now in Enhanced Xbox 360 Backward Compatibi?lity ??Collection [Xbox]

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Jungle Inferno looks like a riot

10 years in and Team Fortress 2 is still going strong. Valve has begun detailing a big update, Jungle Inferno, which adds a control point map called Mercenary Park, several community-made jungle maps, new taunts, and more yet to be revealed. A??lso, there's a yeti. Also also, there's an animated short.

I sometimes forget how much I adore these shorts.

"If Jurassic Park taught us one thing, it's life finds a way," says Valve. "If Jurassic Park taught us two things, it's life finds a way and Jurassic Park is a good idea to steal for an update. And if Valve's legal team has taught us one thing, it was by screaming at us about not telling you the second thing Jurassic Park taught us."

That was definitely Pyro?? wearing a jetpack in the video, by the way. You didn't just dream that up.

Jungle Inferno [Team Fortress 2]

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10 years young

There are some games ou??t there that are true classics. Titles you can dust off and have as much fun playing today as you did when they came out decades ago. One doesn’t need to look any further than last week’s release of th??e SNES Classic and the outpouring of both nostalgic joy from longtime fans and fresh discovery from new ones for examples.

But when I think about classics, I notice two things. One, most of the games I hold up as truly timeless come from the 16-bit era and earlier. The further you get from the release of the PS1 to today, the smaller the library of gems gets. Two, my personal mental list of classic games are almost entirely single-player experiences. Apart from Street Fighter 2 and a maybe a tiny number of long-running MMOs, there are precious few multiplayer titles with a shelf life of more than a year or two. Team Fortress 2 is the rare game that breaks that pattern.

As of today, Team Fortress 2 is a ten-year-old onlin??e FPS that is somehow, unbelievably, still as f??un to play now as it was in 2007.

As someone who played the Team Fortress 2 feverishly when it came out and still occasionally dips in for a quick round or two, it’s hard to believe it has been a part of my life for a full decade now. I’ve spent more years now playing with cartoon mercenaries and eating sandvi??ches in the middle of a battlefield than I spent on my secondary and post-secondary education combined, which might explain a few things about my life.

Explaining the game is easy. Team Fortress 2 is a colorful class-based FPS that pits two teams,?? the archetypal RED and BLU, against each other in a series of objective-based game modes. Sometimes you’re running through each other’s ‘60s-inspired spy bases? trying to steal briefcases full of classified documents, sometimes you’re trying to capture control points in a barn. Other times one team tries to push a cart carrying an old timey atom bomb up a series of railway tracks right into the enemy base (why the enemy team installed those tracks in the first place will forever remain a mystery).

How you accomplish that is up to your personal preferences and your team. Players are free to swap between the nine different mercenaries that ??represent the classes of the game and their subsequent role on the battlefield. Meat-and-potato units like the Soldier and Demoman lead the way with high-explosives and an emphasis on traditional FPS skills. The eternal duo of the Heavy and Medic create a mobile frontline of withering fire and meat, while the Engineer creates fortified micro-bases in the middle of the map. Scouts zoom across the killing field, a constant annoying fly buzzing about, while Snipers and Spies lurk in the shadowy nooks of the map waiting to snuff out unsuspecting targets. And of course, the Pyro is there with its flamethrower to add a little extra chaos to the whole affair.

Each mercenary has their own strengths, weaknesses, and role to play. Teams tend? to holistically find?? a balance of these classes and use their unique skills to work together and achieve victory through cooperation.

Or not. Sometimes, a team of 12 players ends up with six Spies trip??ping over each other like a drunken KGB reunion party. Sometimes, everyone agrees before the game begins to rush the map en mass as a human wave of Scouts - lightning-fast lemmings barreling towards the certain, hilarious doom of an inevitable tur??ret nest. Some people find a favorite class and never switch from it, leaving the other members of their team to figure out the whole balance and strategy thing.

Whatever, it’s all part of the fun. Games are quick and life is cheap? when you’re a mercenary for RED and BLU (organizations players would discover a few years into the game’s life are actually run by the same overseer for indecipherable reasons we may never fully understand).

Team Fortress 2 is a serious game set in a non-serious world. It’s a game that is built on a rock-solid foundation of expertly-crafted game mechanics, but fully embraces the silliness and stupidity of FPS tropes. It takes questions like “why do these arch-rival organizations keep building bases right next to each other?” And blows a sneering raspberry at them. “Because it’s fun, you dolt.”

If you want, you can take it very seriously as a competitive game; all the pieces are there if you want to sink in the time and become a true expert. It’s a deep, complex game that requires mechanical skill, teamplay, and strategy. Just as players are still innovating and developing new playstyles in Street Fighter 2 25 years later, there are still players plumbing the depths of what is possible in Team Fortress 2 right now in 2017.

But, it also includes the tools to hang out and just have a good time. To put on a stupid hat and smack somebody with a fish, or lead a conga-line in the middle of a firefight. If you burn out in the competitive arena, you can always let your hair down and get silly. If you’ve had enough frivolity, you can find a crew and start dropping in six vs. six scri??ms. Whatever your style, you can play it your way.

I truly believe this flexibility in play is one of the keys to the game's longevity. As a longtime fan, I’ve gone through those various stages myself, at times thinking about the game as a competitive property, ??and other times jumping in just to troll teams with mini-sentries and crab-spies. But, there are more pieces t??o the puzzle.

When I say there are fewer “classics” in the post PS1-era and beyond, let’s not get it twisted. There have obviously been plenty of phenomenal titles released since 1996 - just not many that I’d personally consider classics. The problem isn’t that these games aren’t good, it’s just that they are hard to retu??rn to. And this is especially true for multiplayer titles.

Returning to the colorful cartoon land of Super Mario World is easy. Technology might have come a long way since 1990, but no one will ever say Mario World is a bad-looking game - it’s timeless. Coming back to jaggy low-poly 3D models smeared with 30-pixel-wide texture maps is something else entirely. 3D games age poorly, and what is cutting edge in its day is inevitably eclipsed by the next big innovation. As the bar for graphical fidelity keeps rising, games that are heralded for their reali?stic-looking 3D graphics on release seem antiquated a year or two later. In five or so, they look like a wet sack of crap.

Team Fortress 2 on ?the other hand will always be a gorgeous game. Inspired by the pop art of J.C. Leyendecker, the Americana of Norman Rockwell, and the failed promise of jet-age futurism, the art team created a delightful cartoon world for their bloodthirsty mercenaries to play in that cares nothing for photo-realism and everythin??g about style.

The maps of Team Fortress 2 provide a romping view of a nostalgic American heartland as seen through the lens of a Roadrunner cartoon. They exist in a kind of timeless limbo. The characters themselves are defined, not by how many ??polygons?? were stuffed into their models, but by distinctive silhouettes and archetypal shapes. By personality and presence. You don’t need to play hours of the game to understand who the Heavy is or what he’s about - one look at his massive minigun, hulking body, and tiny stub-like legs tells you all you need to know.

Team Fortress 2 is a triumph of art design over technical muscle. Even as the Source engine ages into obsolescence, the world of Team Fortress 2 will always be an i?nviting one to jump back into.

And thanks to a preponderance of updates and ongoing support, you’ll find other players there to greet y?ou.

The tragedy of multiplayer titles is that they are generally temporary joys. Even the best games age out of a player base as time stretches on and sequels splinter the player base while other games woo players away. Eventually the server counts dwindle, players thin out, and the few that still hang around long after release become finely-tuned killing machines - ruthless terminators that are sure to stomp the occasional curious new player trying to rediscover the game. Some fanbases form specific communities that keep the dream alive for the most hardcore fans (QuakeCon, SF2 side-tournaments, games of Melee held on the last CRT ??TV in North America), but for the vast majority of people, multiplayer games are destined to become mere-memories a few years (sometimes months) after release.

Team Fortress 2 found a few ways to break that cycle, the first and most positive being a series of updates to the game. For years since release, the game has benefited from the addition of new maps, game modes, and weapons (specialized tools that created sub-classes within each class, deepening the game and expanding the tactics available). And all of them ??given to players for free. Valve being Valve, enjoys the perks of holding a monopoly on the PC gaming market and can afford to be generous. Especially when many of the most popular maps and items were sourced through community creators, given the Valve? stamp of approval after rounds of vetting and voting.

Team Fortress 2 also benefits from being one of the most complete and easy-to-join free-to-play games on the market. Anyone wh?o wants to play can download and get cracking. A new player gets access to all the maps, modes, and classes. Weapons are easily attainable thanks to random drops, targetable achievements, and a trading system and community market flooded with near-worthless duplicate Razorbacks and jugs of Jarate.

Let’s talk a bit about that market. As someone who has come back to the game after various breaks and absences, the market has been a Godsend. 50 cents here, a couple of bucks there, and any new weapons I might have missed are mine for the taking. I’ve dabbled in cosmetics, found the right shade of paint for my Scout’s gym socks, and splurged on turtlenecks for my Spy. I’ve also managed to buy new video games through the sale of Team Fortress 2 items.

There is an entire, bizarre sub-economy that lives on the back of Team Fortress 2, a black market of rare items and unusual hats that command absurd prices. At a time when I was skint, I sold off some of my rarer gear and turned that cash into new games. It seemed strange to me t??hen and downright perplexing now. Like Dutch aristocrats mortgaging their manors for tulip bulbs, there have been rare, unusual hats that have sold for hundreds of dollars (or the laundered key-based alternative currency) and at times a thriving speculative economy. I don’t understand any of it, but it is a fascinating, vaguely seedy satellite that orbits the game.

Most of all though, I think the thing that makes Team Fortress 2 a classic is its personality. Each me?rcenary brings their own unique voice? and attitude to the battlefield, and a quirky ambiance pervades the entire game.

Aside from all the new maps and guns, many of the updates have focused as much or more on just having fun with the game’s strange world and lovable contract killers than anything else. When a class update would hit, I’d be just as excited to watch the official website for new comic pages and mock catalogs featuring 200-pound baccarat detectors as I ??was for anything coming to the game. Holi?day events like Scream Fortress and Smissmas introduce new, and deeply dumb modes and characters that only added to the whimsy. It’s just a good time.

Fun and personality have always worked hand-in-hand with whatever was actually going on in the game to make Team Fortress 2 something bigger than the sum of its parts.

What other decade-old game can you think of that still gets its voice actors back in the booth to record?? new lines for an update? Just last year, the "Meet Your Match" update added a whol??e new slew of lines and quips for each mercenary to pop off. The Meet the Team video series might have been promotional tools, but they did more than just sell the game to new audiences, they added to the personality of the figures involved and loose lore surrounding the game.

Seven years after release, Valve released the 15-minute opus Expiration Date, a short that is, for all intents and purposes, a mini-episode of a Team Fortress TV show that never was. Ostensibly the short was released to promote the "Love & War" update, but it seemed more like a celebration of how far the game had come than anything else. Maybe the final jewel in the crown of a game that lasted far longer than almost? any FPS has a right to.

Now, three years since that short, and a full ten years since release, it still doesn’t seem like Team Fortress 2’s expiration date is up. It’s still one of the mos?t-played games on Steam and Valve promises? that a long-coming update is still in the wings, ensuring at least one more injection of fresh content. A full decade later, there is still more to look forward to.

Team Fortress 2 is title that has both earned its plac????e in history as a remarkable achievement, and yet remains a living breathing game that anyone can still jump in and play. A true modern classic if there ever was one.

The post Team Fortress 2: A modern classic appeared first on Destructoid.

The hitch in TF2's step

When it comes to competitive multiplayer games, we all have our favorite characters and classes. In this series, I'm putting some of mine under the microscope to see what makes them tick, how they fit into their games, and ultimately why I like them! Check out the previous entries - Kotal Kahn, Reaper, Lex Luthor, The Hunchback.

Team Fortress 2 is going to be 10 years old in a few months. While this is personally disturbing to me since it casts my mortality and inevitable march towards the grave into stark relief, it is also somewhat intriguing. I ??can’t think of another ten year old game that I regularly dust off and play.

Counting different platforms and profiles, I’ve played over a thousand hours of TF2. Probably more if I really took the time to tally it all up. My best days are behind me of course, the vast majority of that time was tallied up during those first glorious three or four years after launch. That beautiful period of my life when I’d come home just as the?? sun was rising, weary from t??he night shift, yet still willing to capture control points until the sun fell back behind the horizon.

Now, the time I spend with the game comes in fits and starts. Berserk little try??sts with the game that come after months and months of dormancy. Much like the profile of a spree killer in a paperback thriller, I periodically come out of retirement to get a taste of the action.

It’s only fitting, then, that my?? fa??vorite character was, is, and will always remain the stab-happy Spy.

A stabbing pain

There is no shortage of articles out there celebrating the Spy and his unique role in the game. At launch, every single review had to go out of its way to talk about what a interesting inclusion the dapper rogue was to the team, and for good reason, he’s a game changer. In the nearly ten years since release there have been hundreds of think pieces and tr??ibutes to the deadly saboteur’s interesting skill set.

I gue??ss this is could be considered one of them, but I'm not going to get lost in the weeds? telling you what you already know.

I could go on about the subtle thrill of playing t?he Spy for hours. The deliberate choice to enter a battlefield dominated by rocket launchers and chain guns with nothing but a flick knife and c?onfidence. The imbalanced endorphin rush of playing the part of both apex predator and endangered species at the same time.

I could talk about the brilliance of the Spy&?rsquo;s inclusion in the game. How his mere presence allows the game to be crazier and weirder than it has any right to be. How the sheer land-locking power of the Engineer’s turrets rely in part to balancing threat of a Spy, ready to murder all his little toys. How the walking meatslab of a Heavy backed up by a Medic is only kept in check by the combined efforts of skulking spies and distant Snipers, who are in turn locked in an eternal game of cat-and-mouse.

I could appeal to how cool the Spy is. How every mercenary in TF2 has a ton of character (it's a big part of the game’s long-term staying power) but none of them, not a single one, have the personality of the Spy. I mean, my God, he shows up to the Wile E. Coyote desert world of TF2 to fight in a suit and dress shoes.

I could talk about all those things, but it wouldn’t get to the core of what I love ??about the Spy.

It’s just plain fun to stab people.

It’s fun to sneak past th?e scrum of rushing bodies and explosives, to come out of the shadows undetected and stab someone just when they let their guard down.

It’s fun to hear an enemy Medic announce his “Ub??er is fully charged!&rdqu??o; seconds before you sink the knife into his back and ruin his day.

It’s ?fun to harass and harry a Sniper until he rage switches to the Pyro and then stab him again.??

At the end of the day, there is no deep psychology at work here. No wonderful appreciation of all the subtle mechanics that make both the Spy and TF2 so great. It’s just a lot of fun to be a jerk once and awhile - and the Spy is a machine m??ade for the job?.

A shameful secret

Despite my earnest and true love ??for the Spy, I have a secret to admit. Over the years, he’s slipped further and further down my most played charts. As the game updated and warped over the years with constant new items and maps, it became harder and harder to stick with the Spy. Especially after several months away from the game, when you come back and everything is different, like someone moving the furniture in a blind man’s apartment.

But, even that is a bit of a dodge. The truth is, my absolute favorite memories of the Spy come from the very first year of TF2’s release. Not because? it only featured the standard maps and weapons, but because I played that first year exclusivel??y on the Xbox 360. What made playing the Spy great on the 360 was the format, 8 vs 8.

You might think smaller teams would be to the Spy’s detriment, all the more easy to spot as a traitor in the enemy team’s midst. A bigger liability on a team’s resource if the Spy fail??s to get results. And that’s all true.

But, there are also a hell of a lot fewer random grenades and rockets flying through the ai??r in 8 vs ??8.

The most aggravating part of playing the Spy is all the brain-slappingly dumb shit that can, and will, happen. The shadow boxing Heavy that somehow wanders over to you cloaking and hiding in the corner and punches your face clean off. The idiot friendly Scout who, out of all the places to run, will beeline DIRECTLY to you when he has an enemy Pyro chasing him. The unending shower of random grenades lobbed wi??thout thought or intention.

It’s hard to feel like James Bond when you’re tripping over your own? dead body like zombie Inspector Clouseau.

In an 8 vs 8 game, things are more manageable. You can rely on a little more breathing roo?m. That’s not to say the Spy can’t work in a typical 12 vs 12, he can. You might have to put up with a little more randomness, but not enough to ruf??fle your Italian silk suit. No, what really dragged all the fun out of playing the Spy was the never-ending series of ridiculous 16 vs 16 servers out there. When you cram that many mercenaries into the narrow corridors of Dustbowl, there isn’t enough room to breathe let alone find some good momentum for your stabbing arm.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve been playing more TF2 since an update introduced a easy ser??ver browser. With the Casual mode server finder seeming to prefer bog?? standard 12 vs 12 Valve servers, it’s easier than ever to slip on the balaclava for the night and find a few nice plump backs to stab. Suit up, find a victim, wash the blood off your hands and go back to your normal life.

Okay, the spree? killer analogy is getting a little creepy a??t this point.

TF2 might be almost a decade old at this point, but when I break out my trusted butterfly k??nife, it’s as fun as the day it came out. C?heers, Spy.

The post You’ve got character: The Spy appeared first on Destructoid.

Log in now for your obligatory gift

Not to get all morbid here right before Christmas, but sometimes, I feel like the odds aren't terrible that Team Fortress 2 will outlive me. (Well, all of us, really.) Valve's eternal team-based shooter is chugging along with updates, and this week, it's the traditional holiday "Smissmas" eve??nt as you would hope and expect. Naughty, nice -- who cares! As long as you show up, you'll get a Stuffed Stocking.

This week's update isn't merely ??about spreading holiday che?er with cosmetic items. Now, when Casual matches end, players will roll into a new game automatically and have a vote on the next map. There's also a volunteer-based autobalance system for Casual matches and community servers in which players can gain bonus XP by switching over to the other side to balance things out as needed.

Happy Smissmas 2016!

• All players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Stuffed Stocking as a gift! Stockings contain goodies for good little Mercenaries.
• Added the limited-time key-less Winter 2016 Cosmetic Case to the Mann Co. Store
  • Contains 17 new community-contributed items
  • The Festivizer can be found as a bonus drop when opening the case
• Added 3 new taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  • The Scotsmann's Stagger (community-contributed)
  • The Didgeridrongo (community-contributed)
  • The Table Tantrum (Valve)
• New weapons for the Festivizer!
  • Fire Axe, The Jag, The Kritzkrieg, Pistol, The Quick-Fix, Natascha, The Sandman, The Spy-cicle, Kukri, Shovel and The Scottish Resistance
• Mann Co. Store winter sale!
  • Look for 20%-75% off selected unlocked cosmetic crates, taunts, and tools in the Mann Co. Store through January 11th, 2017
• Matchmaking Improvements
  • At the end of a Casual match, players are automatically formed into a new match with the same players and teams
    • Players get to vote on which map the new match will take place on
      • There are 3 maps to vote on, chosen based on the maps everyone in the match had selected when they began searching for a match. The current map is always the first option.
    • This replaces the Rematch system
  • Players can now set their maximum acceptable ping by clicking the new gear icon in the top right of the Casual and Competitive matchmaking lobby screens and choosing "Ping Settings"
• New autobalance system to help with balancing teams when players leave a match. The system will ask players to volunteer to switch teams.
  • Automatically enabled for all Casual match servers
    • Players who switch will be able to earn bonus XP as a reward
  • Community servers can enable this new feature by using "mp_autoteambalance 2"

General

• Fixed security issue reported by Justin G. (sigsegv) and Linus S. (PistonMiner)
• Fixed not clearing the teleport condition for players who have their teleport interrupted before the teleport is complete
• Fixed PASS Time exploit related to bonus points
• Updated mat_monitorgamma so it can be adjusted in Competitive mode
• Fixed the ShouldPreserveSquad flag not being parsed correctly in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed a bug related to bot Engineers and teleporters in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed not being able to transfer Strange stats between versions of Jarate and the Sapper
• Fixed incorrect particle position for Unusual taunt effects when using the Racho Relaxo
• Added the ESA Rewind tournament medals
• Added the Winter Wonderland 2016 community medals
• Updated the Dalokohs Bar to fix a bug related to the health buff
• Matchmaking
  • The Competitive maps list has been updated
    • Added cp_granary and cp_badlands
    • Disabled cp_snakewater and cp_foundry
• Updated cp_metalworks to fix a texture problem
• Updated pd_watergate
  • Respawn times will now change depending on which team is in the lead: 8 seconds to leading team, 4 seconds to trailing team
  • Moved the current beer amount to the center of the HUD
  • Added a jump to low spawn route to give respawned players something to do en-route to mid
  • Added a light to illuminate roof-snipers better
  • Adjusted some clipping

Merry Smissmas, Everyone! [Team Fortress] [Image by Steam user Awful Coffee]

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That's an 8, and yes, it's been that long

Team Fortress 2 is celebrating its eighth (!) Halloween this year, and new events and items went live a few hours ago. Valve may be feeling a little pressure from Overwatch, because it looks like there's more new stuff available this time than in years past.? Sadly, there's no new comic, but all of the new and old Halloween content will be active from now through November?? 9, 2016.

You can check the patch notes here, but here are the highlights.

• Three new Halloween-themed maps: Brimstone, Pit of Death, and Maple Ridge Event. The latter is a holiday decorated version of the regular Maple Ridge King of the Hill map.

• Bumper car taunts for every class. Called the Victory Lap, these taunts are based on the 2014 TF2 Halloween event that featured a bumper car race in between the fighting.

• Magic wand taunts for every class. These are called Second-rate Sorcery, because whatever spell the mercs are trying to cast doesn't work.

• New crates and keys are a given, and during the event, opening any crates grants double the chance of a cosmetic item inside having an unusual effect (usually a glow or particle effect that surrounds the character) applied to it. Any item with an unusual effect opened during the event will be a Halloween 2016 unusual effect specifically, and presumably those will be unavailable after the event's conclusion. 

• New costume items include a chicken hat for scout, Hawaiian shirt for Heavy, and a bare-chest option for the Medic. There are several all-class items as well, including a cute knit bat hat. Try saying that a few times in a row.

Anyone who skipped last year's event will receive a Soul Gargoyle that tracks how many other players you kill in Halloween maps. It also unlocks Merasmissions, quests you c??an do to earn a classic Halloween item while the event is active. 

It's amazing to look back and see how much extra stuff has gone into this game since its release. I'm not sure this is enough to pull me away from trying to get Mercy's Witch skin in Overwatch, though. 

Scream Fortress VIII has arrived! [Teamfortress.com]

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Remember vanilla Team Fortress 2?

The Orange Box was a special release back in 2007. Hell, it still is to this day. Valve's compilation disc brought Portal, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two to consoles, and good lord that's a lot of amazing video games in one sentence. As of this week, the Xbox 360 version of The Orange Box is now comp?atible with Xbox One through backward c??ompatibility.

Other additions to the playable-on-Xbox-One list include Xbox Live Arcade titles Joe Danger 2: The Movie (Hello Games wasn't always synonymous with No Man's Sky) and Galaga Legions, a modern take on the arcade staple in a similar vein as Pac-Man: Championship Edition. Never did play that one!

Needless to say, I think it's?? about tim?e we go back to Ravenholm.

Major Nelson [Twitter]

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I hope you like Overwatch

Every year, PAX draws thousands of game enthusiasts to Seattle, and lots of them decide that the best way to express their affection for a given game is to d??ress up like one of the characters. Cosplay has really taken off at PAX since it started over ten years ago. I did my best to photojournalize some of the best cosplay at PAX West last weekend. Let's get to it.

Pokémon Go was doing very well in Seattle last weekend, with lures on Pokéstops as far as the eye could see. Go doesn't exactly lend it??self to cosplay, but that didn't stop this group from coming up with a way t??o show off some of the game's features.

Speaking of Pokémon, Nintendo's booth was full of folks eager to try out the upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon.

That's where I ran into this family, all? dressed up as the Gen 7 starters-- Popplio, Litten, and baby Rowlet.

I saw plenty of Pikachu hoodies and profession??al looking Poké;mon at ??the show, but there's something to be said for an old fashioned homemade costume as well. Here's a Jynx and a Dugtrio.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild wasn't available to play at PAX ?this year, but that didn't stop people from dressing up like Link and Zelda. This Zelda has her own armor, and it looks like she could handle Ganon by herself, no problem.

This solo Zelda looked ready for anything...

As did this Sheik. I never saw these last two in the same r?oom at the same time. Probably just a coincidence??.

From the Legend of  Zelda to League of Legends. I don't play LoL myself, but several of the characters were represented Here we see LoL's parody of a WoW paladin, Taric. I couldn't get it all in ??the picture, but he had a massive crystal hammer as well.

The ninja hero Yasuo was also around, and ready to?? fight.

One blue-clad ninja deserves another. This Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series blu??nk at an inopportune time, but still looks fantastic.

And while I'm posting pictures of blue ninja ladies, Zero? Suit Sam?us fits that description pretty well.

After getting that photo, she asked me to take a picture of her thigh. I make it ??a point never to argue with women who have cannons for arms, so here ya go.

Fire Emblem has gotten a lot more popular in the last couple of years. This group all came dressed as characters from Fire Emblem: Fates.

So did this young lady, dressed as Camilla.

It was nice to see characters who started on the 3DS getting some love. Here's Edea from Bravely Default.

From Edea to Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, who l??ooked lovely. After ??posing for the picture, she yelled "Booker, Catch!" and threw a bottle at my face.

Keeping with the theme of strong female characters, this Shepard from Mass Effect was totally unconcerned about the Tyrannosaurus Rex behind her. I guess savi??ng the entire galaxy from evil robots changes your ideas of what's scary.

The other original Bioware RPG series got some attention too. Here's a knight from Dragon Age.

You couldn't pay me enough to wear a full suit of armor in the Washington State Convention Center, but I've got to admit this fellow looked great. He told me what game he was representing but I had a hard time understanding him. All I know is that it wasn't Shovel Knight.

Keeping with the theme of knights and chivalry, I was happy to see one of my favorite series, Dragon Quest, getting some attention. These two were representing Square Enix at the Dragon Quest Builders booth.

The fellow on the right is Torneko, and I think the one on the left is meant to be a gender-swapped Alena, both from Dragon Quest IV.

I ran into the hero from Dragon Quest VIII in front on the convention center, standing next to an excellent Ayla from Chrono Trigger.

Square games were well represented at the show this year. You couldn't go very far withou??t seeing one of these Uber cabs, decked out like Chocobos with peacock sounding horns.

Theoretically, you could also catch a ride with Cindy from Final Fantasy XV.

I ran into these two several times over the weekend, always with swords locked in the clash of battle. One of them gave me his card after I took their picture.

Edgy guys with swords a??re all the rage this year. I saw several Deadpools, but this one had by far ??the best costume.

This Deadpool had melded with Dante from the Devil May Cry s??eries. He called himself "Danpool, the ultimat??e hybrid."

One of the nomads from Journey made an appearance on the expo floor. It's hard to play video games without any han?ds!

Adult Swim was showing off the new ToeJam and Earl game. Earl was wandering aroun?d ?the show floor...

...b?ut ToeJam had to stay in the booth. It's a little hard??er to make a convincing ToeJam costume.

From ToeJam to Tomb Raider. La??ra here is recovering nicely from that rebar wound.

This pair of youngsters were dressed as the Team Fortress 2 Scout and one of Ezio's assassins from Assassin's Creed.

Fortunately, they were nowhere close to this guy.

Kat from Halo: Reach joined another Spartan waiting for the light to ??change. They look ready to play some Grifball.

By the fourth day of the convention, these Destiny Guardians needed a rest.

Keeping to the M-rated games, the Fallout series was well represent??ed. This Vault Dweller had made her ow??n Plasma Rifle.

Meanwhile, another Vault Dweller proves that Ghouls are people ??too... just horribly irradiated people with melted s?kin.

Without question, the game that had the most representation was Overwatch.?? It takes some guts to walk around a con without a shirt on, but this Junkrat's been doing it long enough to earn himself a golden grenade launcher.

D. ??Va was a popular choice for people to dress as. I found a pair of them near the food court.

This o??ne was less faithful to the source material, but I hadn't seen anyone else try to wear the MEKA suit, so that's worth a few style points. It's a little hard to see, but that??'s a Dorito in his mouth.

Tracer is pretty much the face of Overwatch. She was hard to capture on film, but I managed to ??catch her between blinks. 

Soldier:? 76 needed some help to get his tactical visor on, but he had no problem clearing the roo??m once it was ready.

Z??????????????????????????arya and McCree prove that the relationship between t?he Russian Federation and 'Murica is stronger than ever.

Speaking of M??cCree, this gender-swapped version was all smiles when I asked her what tim??e it was.

Gender-swapping Overwatch characters seems like a popular thing to do. Hanzo and Genji were inseperable. I??'m happy to present... the Shimada sisters.

This Lúcio was a little melanin-challenge?d, but cheerfully complied when I asked him?? to drop the beat.

It was pretty warm in the convention center, so Mei shed her?? bulky parka in favor of a tank top.

H??er ice gun was ve?ry impressive. She told me who made it for her, but I'm afraid I didn't write it down.

Speaking of impressive weapons, this Junkrat and Widowmaker had some of the best I've seen??.

I had to get a closeup on Junkrat's. The attention to detail was amazing. When I asked, they said they'd been working on their gear nonstop since the open b??eta back in April.

Finally, this Reaper seems to have blended himself with Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. Freezing a dude before blasting him into ice chunklets with?? a Hellfire shotgun just seems like overkill.

That's it for this year. There were a ton of other great cosplayers at the show this year, including a really good Eleven from Stranger Things  and a full-body Overwatch Bastion, but his costume kind of fell apart due to the heavy rain on Friday morning. I did want to mention that I got verbal permission to post these images from everyone whose pictures I took at the show, with the exception of a couple of the full body armored costumes. If you have a favorite here or if you can tell me where that knight with the horned helmet came from, let me know in th?e comments!

The post PAX West 2016 cosplay breakdown appeared first on Destructoid.

Time to dust off the old butterfly knife

Are you ready to meet your fellow man, rip out his rib cage, and fashion a ladder of bones and viscera out of them to climb to the top ranks mercenary esteem and praise? Well, good news you sociopath, Team Fortress 2's new “Meet Your Match” update is providing you just? the excuse you need with the introduction of competitive pla??y, matchmaking, and sweet beautiful ranks. 

After nine glorious years of random chaos and pub games, it's time for all the would-be mercenary kings out there to get serious. Competitive play in Team Fortress 2 will feature a six-on-six format similar to what fans? of the unofficial competitive scene will be familiar with. Interestingly, the mode has no class restrictions and none of the documentation mentions team composition limits. However, you can't switch your class mid-match to counter-pick the opposition. Let the Scout rushes and Demo brigades begin.

In competitive mode, every victory or defeat will count towards your player rank. Valve seems to be taking the whole idea very seriously, getting out front with harsh punishments for abandoning games and requiring players to either attach a phone number to their account or purchase a Competitive A??ccess Pass for $9.99 to play. Hopefully the extra accountability will keep people honest.

A new matchmaking system is also heading towards casual unranked games. There will now be a matchmaking process? that sorts you into a fresh game with players of similar skill and experience, no more being dumped into a pub-stomp in progress. Interesting times for a game has been out for nearly a decade.

Meet Your Match Update [Team Fortress 2]

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Don't run! It's just ham!

Experience Points is a series in which I highlight some of the most memorable things about a particular game. These can include anything from ??a specific scene or moment, a character, a weapon or item, a level or location, a part of the soundtrack, a gameplay mechanic, a line of dialogue, or anything else about the game that is particularly noteworthy and/or awesome.

This series will no doubt contain spoilers for the games being discussed, so keep that in mind if you plan on playing the g??ame? for the first time.

This entry is all about Team Fortress 2. F??eel free to share some of your own favorite things about?? the game in the comments!

Screamin' Eagles!

The first thing that grabbed my attention in Team Fortress 2 was its eccentric cast of characters. The Heavy caught my eye first of course, because how could he not? He's so big! I immedia??tely took a liking ?to him due to his goofy, yet menacing, personality and his over-the-top accent. And every other character was just as awesome, from the drunken Scottish Demoman, the psychopathic Australian Sniper, the loudmouthed, arrogant Scout from Boston, and the enigmatic Pyro.

Surprisingly, my favorite character initially looked the least interesting to me: the Soldier. He basically looks like the stereotypical type of military character I would expect to see i??n a first-person shooter, albeit with a slightly cartoonish flair. He was probably the last class I tried out for this reason, but as soon as I started playing as him, I had to admit that the rocket launcher was a hell of a lot of fun to use and I was actually getting more kills than usual.

I also quickly learned that I had seriously misjudged his character. While he is obnoxiously patriotic and aggressive, it becomes quite clear that he's meant to be a satirical twist on those types of macho military men. He likes to shout “maggots!” and refer to his teammates as “ladies,” but many of his spoken responses reveal that he's not quite the smartest cookie (“Ich bin I just kicked your ass!”) and he might actually be slightly unhinged (“I am going to enjoy killing each and every one of you sorry sacks of scum!”). This is made even clearer in the Meet the Soldier video, where he lectures a bunch of decapitated heads abo??ut Sun Tzu, while somehow getting h??im mixed up with Noah.

His backstory, which was hinted at in the comics, just made me love the crazy guy even more. As it turns out, he's not actually a real soldier. He was rejected by every branch of the military during World War II, but due to his rather in?tense patriot??ic attitude, he decided to teach himself how to use weapons, bought a plane ticket to Europe, killed a bunch of Nazis, and awarded himself with medals that he designed on his own. Then he continued to call himself a soldier and tried to convince everyone that he really was in the military. It's a truly inspiring story about never giving up on your dreams, no matter how insane your solutions might be. Shine on, you crazy diamond!

You can go with this, or you can go with that

Team Fortress 2 has some of the best weapon variety I've seen in a shooter. Every character has their o??wn unique arsenal to choose from, ranging from standard classics like the miniguns and rocket launchers, to bizarre and unexpected items like ham sandwiches and jars of piss.

Everyone has their own go-to loadouts?? for individual characters, which are usually varied enough so that no two characters in a single game are using the same weapon combinations. It really helps to keep matches interesting, since you never know what strategies the enemy might try using depending on their loadout. I have a few staples mysel??f, including my Battle Medic with the Crusader's Crossbow in hand, my Pyro with the Degreaser + Axtinguisher combo for easy melee kills, and my Soldier who's always equipped with the Black Box and Equalizer, even though the latter is a much less impressive weapon than it used to be.

But the one weapon th??at I have never swapped out since I found it is the Scout's Sandman. This melee weapon is a simple wooden bat that comes with a baseball. Scout can either bash heads in with the bat, or use the alt-fire to whack the baseball at a target, temporarily stunning them. It has been nerfed and buffed many times since it was first introduced, but has nevertheless remained my favorite weapon to use.

I used to think it was super difficult to aim the baseball correctly in order to hit an opponent, but I've used the Sandman so much by now that I almost never miss my ma?rk anymore. Every successful stun I inflict feels so satisfying. Sometimes I?? get so caught up in it that I forget to switch back to the Scattergun to finish off the dizzied enemy and instead resort to hitting them with the bat a few times and then running off a distance to try and stun them again. Of course, it's even more satisfying to score a kill with the ball, hitting them in head so hard that they fall over dead. It always happens when I least expect it, and it makes me grin every single time.

There can be only one

Trying out all the different weapons is a lot of fun, but my favorite game mode actually restricts the majority of them. In Medieval Mode, pl?ayers can only use melee weapons, as well as a few other thematically appropriate ones such as bows and crossbows. This mode is only available on one map, DeGroot Keep, but it's so enjoyable that I don't even mind playing the same map over and over again.

There's just something fundamentally entertaining about the melee weapons in Team Fortress 2. Having a game mode built entirely around them is genius. Whether I'm raking people over the coals with the Back Scratcher, going crazy with one of the Scout's bats, collecting heads with the Eyelander, or getting a "FISH KILL!" with the Holy Mackerel, I'm h?aving a good time!

The hea??vy hitters in Medieval Mode are definitely the Demoman with his sword and shield and the Sniper with bow and arrow (there are even lit torches scattered around the map to light the arrows on fire!), but even so I tend to cycle through the entire team rather than just stick with those two. After all, the Heavy's Killing Gloves of Boxing are nothing to laugh at, and I'll take any opportunity to play Battle Medic since the Crusader's Crossbow is one of my favorites.

Another neat feature of Medieval Mode is the chat ?parser which (somewhat clumsily) translates all text chat into Ye Olde English. A friendly “Hello” might become “Well met, good sir!” and anyone calling you an idiot might refer to you as an “ill-bred, witless jackanape” instead. It's pretty humorous, even though it can cause the chat to become a load of nonsense rather quickly. But who needs reliable chat options in a team-based shooter anyway?

Watch your back

The Spy is such an interesting character to me. His playstyle is typically not what I go for in multiplayer games. I usually lik??e to be in the action, shooting and fighting out in the open and making my presence known. But to be a competent Spy, I have to do the complete opposite.

Yet there's something surprisingly thrilling about hiding in the sha??dows as a Spy. He's almost never a part of the action. He's either disguised as the enemy and trying to mimic their behavior to blend in and remain unnoticed, or he's hidden under the veil of his invisibility watch, moving from shadow to shadow and trying to stay out of sight. One wrong step could alert the enemy to his presence and he's doomed. It gets my heart racing even when I'm just standing there doing nothing, waiting for my Cloak and Dagger's invisibility meter to recharge so I can move again as enemy Soldiers and Pyros are running past me.

And then there are the backstabs. Pulling off a successful backstab is probably the best feeling one can have while playing Team Fortress 2. Simply backstabbing a single Heavy when he least expects it feels wonderful, but g?etting multiple backstabs at once can make me feel like a god. Whether I'm taking out a Medic followed by his confused Heavy partner, or a handful of unsuspecting Snipers all perched in the same area, or an entire mob of enemies who are too busy attacking to check for Spies. It's such a rush of adrenaline, it makes me feel unstoppable! Well, at least until the Pyros find me...

Salt in the wound

I love the taunt kills in Team Fortress 2. Every character has at least one taunt which can one-hit KO an enemy if they're standing close enough. They can be di?fficult to land, since the animations take a while (especially Scout's) and you usually have to be almost touching your victim. But successfully pulling off a taunt kill feels pretty amazing, because you just know your opponent is sitting there thinking, “Goddammit, really?!” It's an easy way to make people salty.

All of the taunt kills are great, with Scout charging up to hit a home-run, Engineer bashing? heads in with his guitar, Pyro performing a Hadouken, Demoman decapitating dudes with his sword, Medic attempting a spinal tap with a bonesaw, Sniper stabbing people with arrows, Spy practicing his fencing technique, and Heavy simply pointing at people to death.

But my favorite has got to be Soldier's taunt kill, Kamikaze. If Soldier taunts while holding either the Equalizer or the Escape Plan, he'll throw the pickax over his shoulder, crack his knuckles, grab one of his grenades, and pull the pin. He keeps holding onto it as it explodes, killing himself and any enemy standin?g near him. It's the perfect taunt for such an insane character. I actually use it all the time, just because it makes me laugh so much. Sometimes I'll Kamikaze while waiting for the round to begin, or after claiming victory over the other team as a sort of twisted celebratory gesture. I don't know how much my own team appreciates it, but I find it amusing.

Killing with style

Of course, everyone already knows what really makes Team Fortress 2 great: hats! You might think I'm joking, but I actually really do enjoy collecting them. I used to get so jealous when I'd see another player wearing a really cool hat, and hat drops we??re so ?rare that I didn't have any of my own for a long time. I still remember my very first hat drop, the Mining Light for the Engineer, and how excited I was when I got it. It's not even a very interesting hat, but I was still psyched to put it on my Engie.

Actually, most of the hats that I found were pretty lame, with the exception of the Handyman's Handle, a plunger that my Pyro sticks on his head. Even so, every single hat drop I rec??eived was an exciting moment. And I still enjoy seeing all the goofy things other players have on their heads, often wishing I could be so lucky as to find them myself.

In fact, Team Fortress 2 remains the only game?? to this day that got me to purchase something through microtransactions, and of course it was a hat. I decided that I absolutely NEEDED to have the Officer's Ushanka for my Heavy, and since the chances of finding one randomly are astronomically low, I went ahead and bought it. And I regret nothing, because my Heavy looks totally amazing in his ?fluffy Russian hat!

Past Experience Points

Level 1: .01 - .20

.21: Katamari Damacy
.22: Tomb Raider
.23: Mother 3
.24: Deadly Premonition
.25: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
.26: Dark Souls
.27: GoldenEye 007 
.28: Pokémon Red/Blue 
.29: Skies of Arcadia
.30: Dragon's Dogma
.31: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
.32: Super Metroid
.33: Beyond Good & Evil

The post Experience Points .34: Team Fortress 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Time to prove it!

Here’s your chance to prove it, boyo.

Though there’s, as yet, nothing on the official Team Fortress 2 website, Valve has launched a new Steam Community Group dedicated to keeping players updated about the ne??w beta testing phase. 

“We'll be using this group to send out announcements related to the competitive beta as well a?s seed beta invites for the expansion of the closed beta,” states the group description. “If that sounds like a thing you need, get?? in here!”

So. Which one of you lovely humans is gonna sign up?

The post Think you’re good enough to rock Team Fortress 2 competitively? appeared first on Destructoid.

Arkham 2fort

Who said Halloween was over? Team Fortress 2 will soon have a new line of community made items inspired by Batman: Arkham Knight that will let your favorite blood thi????rsty mercenaries dress up as various heroes and villains from the world of Batman. I gotta be honest, The Burt Ward -esque Bat Backup skin for the Scout is just dumb enough to do it for me.

These items are the winners of a Warner Bros. sponsored community contest that was held back in October when Arkham Knight was re-re-released on Steam. Maybe by way of apology, some of these items, such as the Fear Monger hood for the Pyro and the universally wearable Arkham Cowl, will be free to the poor souls who bought that version of Arkham Knight. Warner Bros. could probably use some po??sitive publicity right about now.

These items look pretty cool but I can't help but feel they really missed out on a good Cesar Romero Joker costume for the Spy. I know I would have spent three or four bucks to stab people in the back while sporting a mustache lazily smeared over? with white makeup.  

The post Team Fortress 2?? is getting a bu?nch of Batman inspired items appeared first on Destructoid.

TF2 is still funny 8 years later

Valve used to make really god damn cool videos for its games. Alongside the now legendary Team Fortress 2 Meet the… videos, it also produced some rad videos for Left 4 Dead and Portal 2. The last one I can find is for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and even that was awesome.

Alongside its own videos, Valve released Source Filmmaker to let other people make similar things and the annual Saxxy Awards t??o acknowledge Source filmmaking brilliance. This year’s winners have been announced, and they are still just as awesome as they were years ago when the awards? were introduced.

Her??e’s a full run-dow?n of the list of winners:

Best Comedy: Food Fortress – Pez 108

Best Drama (also the only Dota 2 video): Together We Stand – NoxStudio

Best Extended: It’s Playtime – SFMTales

Best Short: A Dang Good Cop – Will T.

Best Action: Micro-Mann – The Winglet

And the winner for the best overall video?

The amazing Turbulence by Dunkle, which you can see below. Featuring great action sequences, some genuinely funny moments, and original voice acting, it’s pretty clear to see why this one won??:

All of the videos and the nominees are totally worth watching on the Source Filmmaker website, even if some are a little bit jankier than others. It’s awesome to see what people can still do with Team Fortress 2 and the Source engine, even if it is? a? bit past its prime now.

The post Here are the winners of Valve’s 2015 Saxxy awards appeared first on Destructoid.

By the community, Valve's is coming soon

[Update: Turns out Valve in fact is doing a Hallowee?n event. This is s??imply the Community-made Halloween event. We've updated the post below to reflect this.]

The Halloween update is one of the biggest times of the year for Team Fortress 2. With new themed maps and items, it’s been a big thing for players for the last few years now. This year, Valve decided to do things differently and let the community make their own even?t as well.

The result has been a pretty damn huge update called Invasion. Gone are ?the ghosts and giant floating demon eyeballs of the past, now we’re in for a 1950s B-movie alien invasion. You can watch the trailer up above, and it features th?e cast being dorks as per usual.

The update includes new maps (including a reworking of TF2 staple 2Fort), new weapons, and new cosm??etics. What’s more interesting is?? that Valve is selling a ticket that will track players throughout the event and give you a shiny in-game coin at the end. The money made from these tickets is going straight back to the community members who made the update, which is neat.

The Invasion event will be running all the way through November 5, which gives you the best part of a month to live out your Men in Black fantasies. There will still be a normal ???Valve-made event coming later on too.

The post Team Fortess ?2 goes to space with the com??munity-made Invasion Halloween event appeared first on Destructoid.

Created by Bad Robot, of all companies

Ready for another off-the-wall Team Fortress 2 update? After the addition of bumper cars from last Halloween, it seems anything is possible ??with this game. Now the multiplayer shooter is getting another shot in the arm with a sporty new game mode.

The most recent update is a new mode called PASS Time, which is currently in beta. It's kind of like Team Fortress 2 mixed with soccer or basketball. The objective of P??ASS Time is to score goals by carrying a ball known as the "jack" into the enemy base and tossing it into a glowing hole. The player carrying the jack cannot use weapons, but they get a few bonuses such as health regeneration, temporary invulnerability, and a speed boost. Everyone else still has their weapons, so they can shoot down the other team as usual or melee the player wit??h the jack to steal the ball. The jack can also be passed and intercepted, so teamwork and strategy is key.

Interestingly, the idea for this new mode came from Bad Robot Productions, the film and television company owned by J.J. Abrams, and was co-developed by Escalation Studios. It's weird to think of Team Fortress 2 content coming from the company that made Lost, Cloverfield, and the new Star Trek movies, but her?e we are! What an intriguing partnership.

PASS Time actually looks really fun, and after playing Rocket League obsessively over the past few weeks, I'm more than okay with seeing sports and first-person shooters coming together. Maybe I'll finally jump back into Team Fortress 2 again after nearly a year-long hiatus to check it out! &nbs?p;

[Thanks, JBroXNari99!]

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Free update and half-off sale

By some cruel crust of fate, I still have not played I Am Bread, though all I would like to do is to go to bread. The game's rye sense of humor is on display here with a Team Fortress 2 level developed in conjunction with Valve and offered as a free update on Steam. The game's also half off in celebration ($6.50), if you have the dough.

The post Team Fortress 2 also Am Bread, too appeared first on Destructoid.

Play TF2 with your Dtoid community!

Mike is on vacation,?? so you're stuck with the p??ink robe this week. Sucks to be you! Boners! Muahahahaha!

Wow, that?? was fun. Gr??eat to be back guys. And now, a word from your TF2sday sponsor, mister Hank Hill:

Pirates: very annoying on the front of a cereal box, even more annoying in space. In playing Elite: Dangerous I’ve seen quite a few things, but one thing stands out more than everything else. Most player pirates just can’t seem to get a firm grasp of the idea of proper pirating. As a wise Cordovian prince once said, “Bear not like to be poke. Bear get angry.”

The last few times I’ve seen people intercepted, nearly every pirate has started to shoot fir??st and then promise to stop after asking them to give in. You know, it’s rather difficult to believe that after being attacked for no reason that your attacker is just going to walk away if you give them everything. Thankfully the threat of bounties and space cops are great deterrents to would be pirates, who eventually have to accept the consequences of their actions.

Either way, I’m happy just helping people get things from point A to point B for lots of money. I’ve? never really cared what the cargo is, but the fewer questions you want me to ask, the higher the price to move it. So yeah, all of my millions have been built off the backs of illegal trade, but hey, what do I care if the people of George Lucas station have a need to blaze it non-stop.

-Hank

So what is TF2sday?
Every Tuesday, a ton of folks from all across Destructoid hop on to the community server to play, talk, and shoot each other. It's usually a pretty crazy good time, and almost always involves various melee only matches between a handful of classes. So feel free to jump on and join us sometime! 

New to TF2sday?
Don't worry, you're not alone! Any and all Dtoiders are welcome, so please don't be shy. If there is ever something wrong, or if you need to contact one of the serve??r admins, please see below, all admin names and links to their Steam profile is listed.

Admins:
Shadow2398 (Hank Hill)
Swishiee
DF
Fasio_Vita

Server:
IP:68.232.163.42 Port:27015

Match Time:
8 PM EST

Map List:
cp_gravelpit
cp_dustbowl
cp_granary
cp_well
cp_badlands
pl_goldrush
cp_fastlane
ctf_turbine
pl_badwater
cp_steel
cp_egypt_final
pl_cashworks_final1
pl_hoodoo_final
koth_sawmill
koth_nucleus
koth_viaduct
cp_yukon_final
koth_harvest_final
cp_freight_final1
pl_upward
plr_hightower
pl_thundermountain
cp_coldfront
cp_degrootkeep
cp_5gorge
pl_frontier_final
plr_nightfall_final
koth_lakeside_final
pl_barnblitz
cp_gullywash_final1
cp_foundry
koth_king
cp_process_final
cp_standin_final
arena_badlands
arena_lumberyard
arena_ravine
arena_watchtower
arena_offblast_final
arena_well
koth_probed
cp_shiro
koth_trainsawlaser_rc1

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